Thursday, June 18, 2009

Billboard: 'Majors Welcome P2P Win, But $1.92M Award Could Make For Bad PR'

Majors Welcome P2P win, but $1.92 million Award Could Make for Bad PRJune 18, 2009 -- Legal and Management

By Ben Sheffner

The recording industry secured a resounding victory when a Minnesota jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.

The mammoth size of the verdict, representing $80,000 per track, may help dissuade more P2P users from illegally downloading music, and for that the labels are happy. "We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement.

"We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."

But a question arose after the verdict about whether the sheer size of the damages could lead to a backlash against an industry that is already portrayed in some quarters as overreaching.

1 comment:

Interesting article. I can say for one that the RIAA and record label's bad rep isn't only among music fans, but more importantly it's spreading other industries, especially the advertising industry that deal with these entities (has been for a long time) Mentions of the RIAA and even major record labels during our meetings lead to a room of rolling eyes and at least one person mentioning lawsuits against 13 year-old girls, and it will be inteesting to see what type of perception fallout yesterday's verdict will bring since the bar has been raised.

Comments here are moderated. I appreciate substantive comments, whether or not they agree with what I've written. Stay on topic, and be civil. Comments that contain name-calling, personal attacks, or the like will be rejected. If you want to rant about how evil the RIAA and MPAA are, and how entertainment companies' employees and attorneys are bad people, there are plenty of other places for you to go.

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About This Blog and Me

Welcome to Copyrights & Campaigns. This blog provides news and analysis of copyright, First Amendment, and related issues from a pro-copyright-owner perspective, with emphasis on the interaction of these issues with campaigns and the political process.

Between college and law school, Ben worked as a political reporter in Washington, DC at Roll Call newspaper and the Cook Political Report. Ben also served as a consultant to CBS News during the 1994 election cycle, helping prepare producers and correspondents for the election night broadcast. A detailed bio is available here.

This is Ben's personal blog and does not necessarily represent the views of any past, present, or future clients or employers. Nothing herein constitutes legal advice.

Ben lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at copyrightsandcampaigns [at] gmail.com.

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